Tinker Bell weekend part 3 - FYTO5K and more

After all the excitement of Friday and not even getting back to the hotel until midnight, I turned off my morning alarm and planned to sleep in Saturday morning. Unfortunately we forgot there was a window in the bathroom and didn't shut the bathroom door so we were woken up early from the bright sunshine and I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked. More rest would have definitely been nice, but since I was awake it was time to head out for another 5k.

Saturday was the day of the Freeze Your Thorns Off 5k virtual race hosted by Adam at The Boring Runner. Initially I was going to use the Never Land 5k for the virtual race, but then after I started my challenge of running at least 1.5 miles a day for 30 days, I decided why not just do the full 5k distance again on Saturday. I didn't "race" the race, but at least I was participating.

It's probably a good thing I didn't sleep in too late because it was already quite warm at 9am in Anaheim. No freezing of thorns or any other extremities here. I headed out with a vague idea for a route, but no clear plan in mind. I started by following the path from my hotel to the start line of the half marathon to gauge how long it would take to retrace my steps the next day. Along the way, I saw a side gate for Disneyland and stopped for photographic proof of my virtual race location.

Once I got to the half marathon start, around .8 miles in, I kept following that street and ultimately did a big loop around the Disneyland Resort area.

Aside from the "yay, I'm at Disneyland" factor, I'm sorry to say there was nothing remarkable to report about the run. According to my runtastic stats I finished in 27:45, not counting the almost one minute pause for either the photo or a stoplight. I don't even remember pausing the app anymore, but it's on my iPhone so it must be true.

With the "race" out of the way, I was ready to hit the parks again. We started in California Adventure hoping to get fast passes for the World of Color, but when we arrived they had just run out of passes for the early show. So we switched up the plan and decided to save World of Color for Sunday night. We moved over to Disneyland Park instead and I got the obligatory photo in front of the castle.

My stomach was growling so next up was the appropriately named Hungry Bear Restaurant.

I had been obsessing over this restaurant for at least a month leading up to the trip and knew exactly what I wanted to order: a fried green tomato sandwich with sweet potato fries and a lemon bumblebee cupcake.

The sandwich was delicious; the flavors of the fried tomatoes, remoulade sauce, and jicama-mango slaw all blended together perfectly. It was also a great value at $8.49 for the sandwich and fries. It's definitely something I would eat often if I had the opportunity. The cupcake was good, but not as exceptional as the cupcakes found at Walt Disney World.

The Hungry Bear is a great place for a relaxing meal. I enjoyed sitting along the waterfront watching the canoes and riverboat sail past.

For the afternoon, my goal was to check out some new to me attractions: the Storybook Land Canal Boats, Alice in Wonderland ride, and Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin. Of the three, my favorite was the Storybook Land Canal Boats. When I was a teenager I loved thrill rides and never thought that I'd one day outgrow them. But now that I'm getting older, the unthinkable has happened. I don't have the same tolerance for thrill rides anymore and get motion sick more easily. And I also have a greater appreciation for all the special little details that Disney does so well.

The Storybook Land Canal Boats features amazing minature versions of locations from Disney movies. There were so many things to look at and details to take in. Now that I've experienced it and know what the attraction is about, its the kind of attraction that I'll keep coming back to again and again.

Alice in Wonderland's Village

Cinderella's Village and Castle

I'm not going to go into great detail about the rest of the afternoon, mainly because I don't have photos to help jog my memory. I do know that the heat was making me tired so we took things easy by riding the Disneyland Railroad, Monorail, and tried to stick to indoor attractions.

We caught the evening appearance of Mickey's Soundsational Parade and it was better than I expected. The music and dancing was a lot of fun. And again, it was neat just checking out all the details of the floats and costumes.

For dinner we split the chicken fusilli pasta and a side salad from Redd Rockett's Pizza Port. I had heard good things about the pasta, but unfortunately ours was undercooked to the point where some of the pasta was inedible.

The last thing on the schedule for the evening was the fireworks. We watched the show from Main Street and due to strong winds some of the fireworks were bursting off to the left instead of directly behind the castle. So not the ideal viewing, but it was still magical and a great way to end my second day at Disneyland.